Well…recently I have been making you all suffer my attempts at flash-fiction. Here is another short story – well a kind of story.
This one is based on the picture below which was the prompt given to for me and two other bloggers who were tagged for the TELL THE STORY Challenge by 
https://rugby843.blog/2019/02/06/tell-the-story-2/
He Is Just A Little Boy At Heart
Hand in hand we walk along, every now and then he will pause so he can kiss me.
But then something will catch his eye. He loves to see the foxes. There are many foxes in London. There are always foxes lurking on the drive-way. At this time of year they make disturbing noises. Someone told me they are courting and this time of year, and those awful shrieking calls have something to do with mating. He does not care if they make disturbing noises. He is always so excited to see them.
I could tell him about the villagers out in the countryside who kept chickens. They were not at all fond of the foxes. I have seen with my own eyes what foxes have done to a chicken coupe. He does not want to know about how cross the country folk are with the foxes when they get at their chickens. He is always so excited to see them.
Sometimes, as I am gazing at the man I am in love with, I see a little boy, who would love to have the life of a fox. He is envious of the kind of freedom a fox enjoys. He wants to wander and roam like a fox. He is just a little boy at heart who does not want to fully grow up. On the look out for the sign of a fox he feels akin to. He is always so excited to see them.
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So here is the photo that I am choosing as a prompt for three other bloggers.
Please forgive me if you have already been nominated by other bloggers for these TELL THE STORY Challenges and want to have a break from them. But I shall tag three very lovely bloggers and leave it to you to decide if you feel inspired by this photo:
However…(when you read that word “however”, you must realize that there is going to be trouble ahead)…she was made a supervisor. She may have seemed to be suitable for the role, after all, her work was excellent. But you never know with people. They may be very good at their work, but they might turn out to be completely ineffective in their role of supervising a team.
So, on his first day, the supervisor trained him in how to perform the job. She seemed to be pleased with him. As time went on, issues arose. Some were due to his being new in that role. Every now and then he would have a question to ask because he was unsure about an aspect of the work, or he had forgotten something she had mentioned on that first day. She became impatient and irritable. Why should she have to repeat herself – what was the matter with him? She viewed him as an annoyance because his questions and requests for clarification slowed her down from getting on with her own work.
She became more and more hot-tempered with the new administrator. He began to look unhappy. Although I sat on the other side of the open offices and worked within a different department, I observed what was happening, I could hear the conversations between them. I also heard her grumbling about him when he was away from his desk. She was watching his every mistake and I could see her hatching a plan to get rid of him. Just like that cat up at the top watching the goldfish. She was scary! She was incredibly intimidating and icy when she spoke to him. She did not see why she should be patient and make sure he was confidant in his role. She was essentially a very poor supervisor.)
But she wore that man down. One Friday evening around five o’clock I saw him in tears at his desk. I knew why. The system had crashed for several hours earlier that day, so she insisted he would have to stay late to catch up with the work. I had heard him ring his wife to explain he was not going to be home on time. I approached him on my way past. I was aware that the manager of the department who was the superior to the scary supervisor was nearby. She noticed me strike up a conversation with the administrator.
He thanked me. I don’t normally get involved in anything remotely like “office politics”, but I felt that this guy was being pushed towards a break-down by his scary supervisor, so I intervened. I could see the huge sense of relief that came from over him and a weight lift from his shoulders. I went back to my desk to get my coat and bag to head home. I was extremely gratified to overhear the manager approach him and tell him that she did not want him to stay late on a Friday evening doing overtime. He should be with his wife at home. The manager said she would explain to his supervisor that she had told him to go home.
On the following Monday he handed in his resignation letter. He told me later that over the weekend his former manager, at the company he had worked at previously, had called him to ask him to come back to the company but on a much higher salary. He had jumped at the chance. I was so pleased for him. He was soon gone and I hope he never looked back.
The scary supervisor repeated her mistakes over and over. Her work was excellent. Her poor people skills, her impatience with new staff and her demanding, overbearing, intimidating manner of communicating meant that she was one of the names that were put forward to meet the quota for redundancies. She was soon gone…and I hope for her own sake, she learnt to be a bit more empathetic when she was a new member of staff at the company she went to work for, and had to be trained by her new supervisor.
Amongst the oldest of penned stories and accounts, are tales of love, victory, jealousy and anger. Humans have not really changed. We still have the same feelings as people who lived their lives hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago.
One of the most important lessons humans need to learn from history is to never let love grow cold. For when love is scarce, we humans crumble. Families shatter, communities segregate, populations suffer, once mighty empires crumble.
I have been nominated for another TELL THE STORY Challenge by Rory, aka 
He told me he likes that I am “all woman”. What on earth is that supposed to mean? I thanked him before I started pondering what he meant. He asked me what bra size I take! I was mortified with embarrassment. Could he possibly have made himself seem any more like a creep??? I said I am not really sure right now as I have not had a proper fitting for three years so I am probably wearing the wrong size underwear. I think my Dad would have told me to leave at that point.
He started telling me that his mother was in and out of hospital when he was a very young child, so he has always felt he missed out on the natural closeness most children have with their mothers. He said that he had always looked for a woman who had a motherly character. I sat there hearing what he had to say in horror, wondering why he was telling me at this point that he has “mummy issues”, and praying silently “oh ground, please open up and swallow me whole”!
I am blaming Goldfinch!
The only good thing about the sports field today was that the ground was hard and compact. I have endured too many cross-country circuits where we were all slipping and sliding through the mud and could barely stay on our feet. There was something about the fiercely cold wind that made me run faster than I had before. I think all of us girls were running faster than usual, and Miss Forster had a sadistic look of triumph across her face as she cheered us on whilst gripping her stop-watch tightly.
As I was running past the tennis courts for my last lap around the fields, I noticed that funny girl Emily who was in her uniform with her school coat on. Emily kept to herself, she didn’t seem to want to join in with anyone else. Emily always had a sick note for physical education, she never seemed to take part in games lessons. She didn’t play any sports or do any athletics or running. She just sat or stood whilst everyone else had to take part.
And then I saw something I had never seen before. Emily Rogers began to run. She did not look back, I could see her powerful strides as she galloped across that field as if her life depended on it. I have to admit there was something inspirational about witnessing Emily’s escape. Every single one of us girls were feeling hard-pressed to be made to run around the school sports fields in our gym-knickers. We would have loved to escape, but it was Emily who had done it. Emily Rogers who nobody had ever sen run before…she was now fleeing as fast as her legs could take her.
Caramel 